


things i wish i could tell you

by tomatoes



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Character Study, Enemies to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, dex is so brave and so fucking ORANGE, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-18 00:10:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9352769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatoes/pseuds/tomatoes
Summary: Nursey is a born poet.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i love these roads where the houses don't change (and i like you)

"Derek, your poem is beautiful! I think you might be a gifted writer."

Derek thought about this. He really hadn't thought about his life at all, he had just been waiting for the next weekend, the next break, the next summer vacation for the last two years of his life, letting the days pour through his fingers without paying any attention to where they were going, allowing his life to fog up the water he was standing in. But the way his teacher said it, with such conviction that Derek Nurse was a writer, made him think.

And Derek thought a lot, really, it was almost all he did. So he thought about writing through his whole practice after school, and he messed up a couple of drills because he was focused in on the way the ice flew up under his skates, and how to put that into words.

He went home and wrote.

The first poem he wrote of his own free will was about a girl who sat next to him in chemistry, who brushed her long brown hair behind her ear even when it wasn't falling in front of her eyes. _i want to get to know you,_ whispered the harsh light of the document. In freshman year, he opened the door.

Derek Nurse wanted to know people.

He saved poetry for the spare moments when his emotions became too much, when he got overwhelmed and felt he would drown anyone he tried to talk to. He kept them filed away in a neat little document, and he would scroll all the way to the bottom and write through the blur of tears late at night. In junior year someone somewhere on some long-abandoned forum post said to write happy poems, so he did.

The next year was senior year and he kept writing happy poetry, sometimes about the way the moon cast its beam over the water when he was on vacation by the sea, or sometimes about the stories embedded within the chipping outer walls of his apartment that he could see if he leaned out his bedroom window far enough to make his mother nervous. But mostly he wrote about people.

He wrote about the people he saw walking around the boardwalk in the summertime, about the girl with the soft pink hair and freckles covering her skin, about the boy with the dog on his bike he caught a glimpse of through the window of his car. He wrote about the ice cream vendor who sat in the ice cream stall every day from 7 in the morning to 9 at night. He would make up stories about their lives, where they had come from, where they were going. Derek loved people.

And in senior year he loved a boy he had never known before. It was the kind of crush where you look at the person and they're different than they were, like someone adjusted the lighting on their face and suddenly there was a new person. He was tall, and people liked him, and Derek liked him, and Derek kissed him late at night in the dimming lights the dance coordinators had hung up in the gym when they were taking down decorations from the Halloween dance, running his fingers through his bleached hair, and the boy kissed him back. They made it until the spring when the captain of the varsity basketball team caught them and the boy's parents made them end it, and Derek went home and cursed and cried and wrote. They didn't dare make eye contact in school, and everything ended as abruptly as it started.

He sent the poem titled "october 31st" to every college he applied to.

He knew it wouldn't be tough to get into any colleges—he was from Andover, and his GPA was strong, but he still felt a rush of nerves hit him when he stepped onto Samwell's campus with the other high school seniors. He had made friends with a kid named Chris almost immediately, and they stuck with each other during the tour, which made him feel a little better.

As soon as he stepped into the rink he felt at home.

Hockey was like his second poetry, but instead of channeling his emotions into a document full of sad words and happy words, he used it to forget about all of his emotions for a while, to just feel the almost-cold of the rink and hear the scraping of blades against ice. He talked to Shitty for a while about the team and life at Samwell, and the excited freshman who was handing out goodie bags.

"I thought since _Jack Zimmerman_ played here, guys would be...less good at baking, if you know what I mean."

Derek felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He was about to turn around and tell the guy that if he wasn't comfortable with that stuff then maybe he shouldn't have come to a school that was so LGBT-friendly, but then the freshman started leading them to the pottery studio and Nursey was left with a stolen glimpse of him.

The fire of Will Poindexter haunted him all summer.

When he arrived at the Haus the first day he wasn't Derek, he was Nursey, and he thought it fitting that he got a fresh start. He glanced at the other frogs and saw Chris—well; he was Chowder now—and Dex.

Dex stood there in a flannel with his brows permanently furrowed, and he had callouses on his hands and freckles all over his pale skin. He stared at the old, beat-down Haus with a sense of purpose. When he looked in Nursey's direction, his eyes shone bright orange in the midday sun.

And Nursey started to write.

  


_someone told you that you're cold_  
_so you walk on hot coals to keep yourself warm_

  


Dex was intimidating, almost. If he was able to keep a level head, he could have been a warrior, gazing out over the cold rink with a hardened stare. Nursey could see the wind messing his short orange hair, brushing past the ever-present plaid around him as he looked over the battlefield. In one of the spare moments when he wasn't fighting with him, or Ransom and Holster weren't chirping him, or Bitty wasn't trying to teach him how to bake, Nursey could see the smoother side of Dex. He could see a fighter.

And then the buzzer would blare and the door would open and a crowd of loud college hockey bros would skate out onto the ice, and the moment would leave. Nursey sat on the bench and watched the older D-Men work in perfect sync, and looked at Dex and thought. _God, his ears are fucking huge,_ said his brain, acting like it wasn't a little bit in awe of Dex.

"I don't understand why you two can't get along," Chowder sighed on Tuesday at breakfast. Nursey focused on spreading butter on his toast. "Nursey? Hello?"

"He's against pretty much everything I'm for, if you can't tell."

Chowder sighed, and Nursey looked up at him. His face was curled in frustration and confusion like he was purposefully left out of an inside joke everyone else was in on. Nursey admired Chowder in a lot of ways. The constant stream of upbeat positivity carried the team sometimes, and Nursey was grateful for that. He'd be lying if he said he didn't wonder how Chowder had made it through life up to this point and still retain the cheerful naïvety he carried.

"Dex and I are just different fundamentally," He says quietly. Words hurt to come out sometimes. "He's allowed to be angry. He's allowed to yell."

Chowder's face softens a bit, and he mumbles the next words through a knowing smile. "I bet he's allowed to be stupid, too."

Nursey actually laughs out loud at that one, causing some people from neighboring tables to stare at them. "Shut up, you're so smart, man!"

"Stop stereotyping me," Chowder grins from over the table. "And can you pass the napkins?"

  


_why don't you try to chill for once,_  
_feel everything build up in your chest and you can't let it out_  
_make a timebomb out of yourself_  
_and feel the emotions choke you as they're crawling up your throat_

  


Nursey wakes up on the green couch and the Haus is dark and he's in that groggy state you get after a nap you shouldn't have taken. He looks over at the cable box, which tells him it's 1:34 in the morning in bright green. He soon hears the voices that assumedly woke him, and tries to listen.

"I just don't understand why—" He hears a noise halfway between a grunt and a scream, and something like a fist pounding against a wall. Dex is yelling for some reason; Nursey can tell.

"I know, I know." Bitty repeats the words like a hushed mantra as Dex continues to yell. Eventually, he stops, and all that Nursey can hear are labored breaths. The next time Dex speaks, it's wet and scratchy.

"I hate being there."

"I know."

"It's just—I have to hear it every day, and I love my family, but the things they say are—" Dex's voice breaks again, and he takes a shaky breath. "I wish I could just stay here."

"I know."

There is shifting, and Nursey sees two approaching shadows on the floor, and he snaps his eyes shut.

"Oh, Nursey fell asleep on the couch again." Bitty says like he's a suburban mother of four and not a college sophomore on the hockey team. He hears them pass through the entryway to the living room, and Bitty speaks up again. "You know, you don't have to tell them anything. Just lay low and excuse yourself if the topic comes up."

Dex sniffs. "Thanks."

"Do you want me to walk you home?"

"I'll be okay. See you tomorrow," The front door opens and he feels cold air rush in, freezing a part of the air, and then it shuts. Bitty sighs and turns out the lights in the kitchen and the hallway, and Nursey hears him pad up the stairs.

He pulls out his phone and opens the document.

  


_i'm sorry_  
_if you need help i know heimlich_

  


Something happens over winter break where Dex starts texting him and he texts back and they're friends, kind of. Nursey asks how things are with his family and Dex says _Not that great_ and Nursey gets to hear about his very conservative family up north, and they don't ever call or talk face to face, but Nursey tucks his head into his shoulder and smiles every time he gets a text from him.

The team meets by the pond back at Samwell, and the two of them make eye contact and share an imperceptible smile, and if Nursey's life were West Side Story everything around them would've gone quiet and blurry and it would have just been them for a little bit, but Nursey's life is a chaotic mess, so he gets a slap on the back from Holster and Dex is tackled by Chowder.

After everyone has reconnected, Nursey skates over to Dex and tucks his beanie down on his head.

"Miss me, Poindexter?"

"No."

"You're always free to Skype me."

Dex scoffs and skates away, but not before Nursey catches the look of fondness on his face, and he figures it's better to live.

  


_i missed you._  
_is that weird?_

  


He steps back just in time to avoid getting hit in the face by something and sees Dex throw his helmet as hard as he can on the locker room floor. He's shaking—oh, God, Dex is trying desperately to hold back tears as they enter the locker room, and he's standing just in front of Nursey as they pass through the doors. His head is turned down in defeat, eyes screwed shut, and Nursey can do nothing but watch as he shakes harder, calms himself, and then sighs.

Nursey was never one for publicly showing emotions. That was what poetry was for, though: tucking all the sad things away in a box and shutting it until it was time to open it again. He was as upset as everyone else about the loss, but it was inside, locked up and being saved for later.

He can't pull his gaze away from the helmet sitting on the floor.

He isn't really thinking when he reaches out and puts a hand on Dex's shoulder, when he slides it down so it rests gently on his upper back. He's too afraid to push further, so he lets him go as they walk to their respective cubbies. Everyone changes in relative silence, and Nursey watches Dex shiver as he puts on his clothes. He doesn't know what to do as he walks out to the bus next to him later, dusk slowly blanketing the outside parking lot, turning it a dusky grey-purple. They're the first people to come out of the building, and the low hum of traffic buzzes around them as they walk across the concrete to the bus. Dex starts to shake again halfway there, his right hand goes white-knuckled on the strap of his bag, and Nursey stops short and puts a hand on his shoulder again.

"Dex?" He watches another wave hit him. Slowly, he slides a hand across his back so his arm is over his shoulders. "I'm right here, okay? It's okay."

"It's not—" Dex's voice is rough and squeaky with bottled-up tears, and he clamps his mouth shut as soon as he hears it. Nursey eases his bag off his shoulder, pulls Dex's hand off of his, and turns him gently so they're facing each other.

Nursey learned how to keep his voice smooth and low for situations like these. He drops the tone of his words so he can feel them vibrate in his throat. "No one is individually at fault, and—"

"I know that! I'm just—upset, I'm sorry," the tears are starting to slip from his eyes, "I've been such an asshole, I—"

Nursey has never seen Dex break before. He's seen him snap at him and go red in the face, but he's never considered this. Someone told him once that all negative emotions stem from sadness, blooming outwards through nerves until you're yelling or screaming or crying. He looks at Dex and someone shines a light from a different angle.

"Dex, no, no, no, man. It's not—" Someone closes the dam in his throat. He can't say anything else but "Shit, man, are you okay?"

Dex looks like a puppet whose strings are being slowly lowered, his body buckling in on itself. He guides him down until they're both sitting on the pavement, and Dex is still shaking, and at this point Nursey simply doesn't know what to do. So he kneels there in the parking lot with him as he shudders. "I'm sorry. I bottled everything up,"

"I get it. It's okay."

"Thanks for staying here."

Nursey has always been afraid of the notion of the word "lifetime," of the suffocating weight of the knowledge that he will grow old and die like everyone else. When he was fifteen years old, he read an anthology of poems and spent hours staring at the dates, imagining the poet's lives before they died. 1785. 1862. 1930. Were they happy? He didn't sleep well for three days.

And if he got run over by a car in this parking lot because he and Dex are two dumbass college students who are sitting down in the middle of the road between the parking spaces, he would be pretty pissed and would probably haunt Row B for all eternity. But if everything melted away and it was just him sitting, talking, growing old with the boy in front of him, floating endlessly cross-legged on a concrete sea, he might be okay.

Dex shifts so he can rest his head on Nursey's shoulder. He closes his eyes and sighs deeply. He sounds tired. "Sorry again."

"It's okay," Nursey says.

Dex sits next to him on the bus ride home, as always. They sit shoulder to shoulder, knees bumping against each other as the bus moves along. Dex falls asleep with Nursey's hand in his, but he doesn't say anything.

  


_silence between one is lonely_  
_silence between two is love_

  


"I can't believe we're cheating on Jerry." 

Nursey has an old convertible that was a hand-me-down from his parents when he turned 16, and he keeps it in a garage near his dorms on the rare occasion he needs to drive somewhere. Dex doesn't have a car, but he has intense opinions on diner food and at what time of the day it is to be consumed, which is why Nursey is getting into his car at 11:30 p.m. on a Sunday because Dex texted him an hour ago and said they were going to a diner.

He starts the car up and looks over at Dex one more time, eyebrows raised, and Dex rolls his eyes at him.

"Just trust me on this one. It's good," and he leaves it at that to stare out the window as they pull out of the garage. Nursey drives fast under the yellow street lights that hang over the highway like angels leading him down an empty path to God knows where.

"Any reason we're doing this so late?" He paints the words with a shade of pink, and they curl out of his mouth like smoke. Perfect. _Always flirt a little bit, Derek, you never know where it can get you._

"It's a twenty-four-hour diner," Is the response he gets. Fair enough. "Can we have some music?"

"Your pick," Nursey gestures to his phone in the cupholder. "Password is 5683."

Dex looks at him with bewilderment, and he laughs. Nursey has never acted protective of the stuff in his phone. The more relaxed you seem, the less it looks like you have to hide. "Of course you have Spotify Premium," Dex scoffs. Nursey shrugs and the beginning of a familiar song fills the car. "Lorde?" He likes 400 Lux as much as the next unapologetic hipster, but he doesn't expect it to be Dex's choice.

"I picked your most recent playlist, relax."

Nursey just smiles and leans into the music, watching the highway peel open in front of him as he follows the directions Dex feeds him.

When they get to the diner it's 12:30 a.m. and Dex has heard "more indie synth bullshit than I ever wanted or needed to". Nursey chuckles and stands by the chrome stairs with his hands in his pockets, watches Dex ungracefully climb out of the passenger seat and fix his flannel. "Mamie's 24/7" hums above him in neon blue. "Let me do the talking," Dex says as he walks past, like they're going in on some illegal back alley shit and not an entirely sober post-meridiem diner trip. Nursey follows him inside.

There are a few small groups of people sitting in the faded booths. The woman behind the counter smiles at them, and crow's feet bloom from the corners of her eyes. "Can I seat you two?"

"No, thank you," Dex says, "We're ordering to go." Nursey stays quiet as instructed and reads the specials printed on colorful laminated paper hanging over the counter. He waits as Dex talks to the woman behind the counter, and he hands over a few bills before she shuffles over to the pie case.

Dex comes back with two pies in a bag and pokes Nursey in the shoulder with his free hand. He looks up and gasps. "Cheating on Bitty, too? Scandalous."

"Shut up," Dex mutters as he leads him out of the diner. They drive up to the top of the hill and Dex directs him down a poorly-maintained dirt road to a clearing. "We're gonna get murdered." Nursey says.

"I hope they get you first." Dex replies.

The two of them sit on the hood of Nursey's car and look at the stars, stabbing the plastic forks into the pies absentmindedly. For a while silence is okay, and Nursey tries to find constellations like his mom taught him. He can only ever find Orion, but that's usually enough to impress people. Eventually the silence is too empty, so he breaks it.

"Why are we up here at one in the morning?"

Dex looks at the sky. Nursey sees the warrior again, now looking desperately to the heavens for answers. "My sister went to college up here and every time I visited her we went to this diner and got pies," he says with some melancholy. Melancholy has always been Nursey's favorite word. Maybe because of the way it rolls over his tongue like a hard candy. But he knows how it is to feel melancholy, and he doesn't want Dex to feel that. "She moved across the country when she graduated last spring."

"Oh, huh," Nursey says eloquently. "Why'd you bring me up here?"

Dex shrugs too quickly. "Year's almost over. I needed a break," he laughs, in a kind of forced way. "It's kind of a weird coping mechanism."

Nursey thinks about this. He thinks about a boy with bleached hair and a wild streak as wide as his smile and he thinks about the spring break where he learned to live for the third time and he thinks about Dex, again. "Did you see any cops on the way here?"

Dex's brows furrow as he thinks. "No. We're in the middle of nowhere. Why?"

Nursey stuffs the rest of his pie in his mouth and slides off the hood of his car. "I'm Black, dude."

They push seventy, eighty, ninety as the lights from far away neighborhoods turn into ribbons in the dark. The engine of his car fights with him as it's pushed to the very limit, and Dex reaches his arms above his head, fingers straining to brush the stars, and howls. Nursey smiles so wide his cheeks hurt. They ride like that until they reach their exit, and for the fourth time in his life Nursey recalls what it feels like to be alive, endlessly and openly, and he feels the moments wash over him, feels them brushing by his skin, ticking by second by second. Dex laughs and it's loud and wild and he's here, right now, he is Derek Malik "Nursey" Nurse.

And he's okay.

  


_press your lips to my neck and feel my pulse_  
_racing like a marathon runner_  
_a new being reincarnated again_  
_i want to live_

  


He finds Dex in the basement, working on the dryer.

"Trying to get dibs, I see."

Dex scoffs. "Actually, I just like having clean clothes."

They had talked every so often over the summer, maybe once or twice a week. Dex told him about life on the lobster boat, how spotty the service was, how the openness of the ocean reminded him that there was more than catching seafood in his future. Nursey said maybe he should've been a poet too, and Dex had laughed and told him to shut up, and Nursey smiled. He finally convinced Dex to Skype him one day after he got home, and Dex was sunburned to all hell when he picked up, and Nursey laughed and called him a cooked lobster, and Dex hung up on him, but he called him back two minutes later.

"I see right through you, Poindexter," Nursey says, but Dex is lost in the chrome interior of the dryer, spinning it slowly and stopping it. Eventually, he grabs a water bottle from the fridge and moves to sit on the dryer, and Nursey watches him pull his shirt up and wipe the sweat off his face. He feels awkward standing there with no reply. "What—what's wrong with it?"

He really couldn't care less, but Dex is here and he likes talking to Dex. "Honestly? It's just old. With all the parts to replace, at this point I'm thinking it might be cheaper just to buy a new one."

Nursey nods like he understands any of this, and sits on the washer next to him. He stares at Dex's tight jaw and the fine line of his lips. "You're really cool."

He didn't mean to say that. Why did he say that? He doesn't even remember the thought process—well, Dex is looking at him now, with a facial expression that would've looked angry if it didn't also look confused.

"What?"

"I said—I said you're really cool. Like, you fix stuff. Who fixes stuff anymore? It's 2015." He presses his palms into the lid of the washing machine. He's sweating despite the general cool of the basement.

"Oh. Thanks." Dex looks like he's blushing, but it's probably just his hair.

  


_but you are still the god of fire_  
_and i want to touch you, but i am still afraid of being burned_

  


"We'll be juniors next year," Nursey says, not daring to look up from his phone. He doesn't want to see the look on Dex's face. "Halfway done."

It's hot in the Haus—it always maintains a temperature a few degrees above or below a comfortable level. Nursey is lying on the loveseat facing the front window of the Haus, the brim of his snapback forming a line of sweat against his forehead. Dex sits on the floor, papers spread out on the table in front of him. Very slowly, he turns to look at Dex, examines his cross-legged stance on the floor, looking like a deity that people would pray to if they wanted freckles. Dex swallows roughly, never pulling his eyes away from the paper. Chowder sleeps on the green couch.

Something in his head tells him he shouldn't have said that and he knows it's true, because Dex's shoulders are tensing up. He hears the group in the kitchen burst into laughter.

Bitty and Jack and Shitty and Lardo and Ransom and Holster.

The laughter that comes from the kitchen reminds him of the line drawn in between Bitty's freshman year and theirs, reminds him that he came in a step too late, and he missed out on something of unspeakable importance, immeasurable weight. He will never know the bond between those six people, and there is no way he could weasel in if his life depended on it. He knows all of these people, yes, but he will never understand the wiring of their relationships. Sometimes he lies in bed and realizes he's in the first year that isn't part of the "OG SMH", and he doesn't know how that makes him feel, really.

"Nursey?" Dex's quiet, raspy voice is like a light turned on in a dark room when you're trying to sleep. He's probably been staring at the cuffs on his sweatpants for too long, because Dex is standing up and stretching and then coming over to the couch. Nursey groggily makes room and the cushion sinks down next to him, and Nursey can feel himself staring blankly out the window at the sun lazily dropping below the horizon, eyes glassed over like he's dead. He hears Dex sigh heavily, and his calloused hand slides around Nursey's arm until he's almost hugging it, and his head rests on Nursey's shoulder. Nursey's brain tells him very loudly and clearly to do something, you idiot, so he tips his own head onto Dex's, and they sit like that, listening to the static of chatter in the other room. Dex sniffs wetly.

"Dex," He whispers, desperately pushing himself back to the surface, dragging his arms through the waters. "Dex." He finds the brainpower to wrap his arms around him, feeling the soft fabric of the old hoodie Dex is wearing move over his tense back.

"Asshole," Dex hisses, tears sliding down his cheeks, "I'm gonna miss you, and you're not even gonna miss me."

Someone in Nursey's head turns the channel to something he hasn't paid for, and everything is white noise and he gets a weird sort of tunnel vision on Dex's blotchy face.

"I miss you every time I go to bed."

Dex's face goes from blotchy to straight-up red, and he reaches back to grab a pillow and comes back so hard on the swing that Nursey sees every God he's ever prayed to.

"I will kill you, motherfucker," he whisper-screams, and Nursey raises his forearm just quick enough to block the second blow, and is pushed onto his back by the force Dex is putting on the ten dollar decorative pillow from Bed, Bath and Beyond. If he was a cartoon, steam would be coming out of his ridiculous ears and his eyes would be on fire. His eyes are always on fire.

"Your eyes are always on fire." Dex brings the pillow over his head like an executioner raising an axe and brings it down on his face.

"What is wrong with you?" He asks after landing a few more blows on his arm and tossing the pillow back to the couch corner.

Nursey tips his head back so he's staring at the ceiling and focusing intensely on anything but the fact that Dex is straddling him and finds nothing wrong with it, apparently, but still got mad at him when he made a very romantic statement sexual, which Nursey doesn't understand, and Dex shifts and it's all over really. "I meant to say I miss you when I'm sleeping, or whatever. Like, I miss you when I can't see you," He says hoarsely. "Did you really think I wouldn't miss you?"

Dex shifts again and shrugs. "I dunno," he says bluntly.

"We were cuddling like a middle-aged couple about two minutes ago."

"That was platonic."

"I will punch you so hard."

And then Dex freezes, and he freezes too, and for a while, it seems like both of them are waiting for the other to speak. The group in the other room has moved on to a quieter conversation, something more intimate. Chowder sleeps.

"It—I—I mean, I assumed—" Dex's hands are starting to shake, and Nursey clumsily pushes himself up, and now he has a boy in his lap and a half-functioning brain.

"Do you like me, William J. Poindexter?" He meant for the tone to be joking and accusatory, but instead it comes out nervous and soft, like a kid asking out his crush to the dance in freshman year. Dex is shaking, and Nursey might be shaking too, and his sweaty hands grip the armrest of the sofa as paler, freckled ones come up to brush his jaw, palms pressing against his cheeks, and he can barely breathe, and Will Poindexter's burning eyes slide closed.

Betsy 2 beeps loudly, and the conversation in the other room breaks into a chorus of "Pie!" and "S'wawsome!"s, and Chowder wakes up. They jerk away from each other, Dex sucking in a breath like he'd been punched in the gut. They lock eyes, and Dex hurries to get off of Nursey's lap before Chowder has any grasp of what's going on. Nursey gets up after him and almost falls over, but Dex catches him. They stare at each other for a long time, and Nursey maps the freckles on Dex's face. He can only ever find Orion, but that's usually enough—

"Are you guys coming for pie?" Chowder asks. Dex lets go of Nursey's forearms and nods grimly, like he's just confirmed that someone he cared about died and not that he's getting some dessert. Nursey looks away from him and sighs tiredly.

"Pie sounds great."

His voice sounds hollow, and he watches Chowder turn around and go into the kitchen. They stand in the doorway.

"Jack and Bitty are together. That's pretty cool."

Dex stares at the floor. He snaps his head up and walks into the kitchen. Nursey follows, helpless to do anything else.

_we were so close this t_

"What's that?" Dex says quietly. Nursey looks up. He sees Dex looking at the document open on his phone, and he fumbles to cover it.

"Uh, it's, it's just some poetry."

"Oh," Dex says, and stares at Nursey's hands. "Can I read some?" Nursey's brain kicks into overdrive, and Dex must notice because an apologetic look crosses his face. "Sorry, I just—"

"You can read some," The words come out of his mouth at a million miles per hour and about three octaves higher than usual, and Dex smiles wide. "Just—not here."

They sit on the steps of the front porch, and Nursey scrolls up to the beginning of everything, and hands over his phone like it's a weapon. Dex takes it and Nursey sits and waits.

It's awkward at first, in the way it is when your teacher is checking over your essay and you have to wait for her to be done before you can start working again. His heart is racing. Suddenly, there's a tangible moment where he can feel Dex's realization, and he watches it unfold over his face in a wonderful way, and when Dex looks up at him, he smiles, nervous and a little bit embarrassed.

"Sorry." Nursey says quietly.

He doesn't say anything else because Dex kisses him. And he closes his eyes and cups the other boy's face, because Nursey doesn't take a single thing for granted. They pull apart but immediately push back in, foreheads touching, noses brushing against each other, eyes still closed. Eyes always somehow closed.

"I like you," Dex whispers.

"I love you," Nursey whispers back, because he's a romantic.

Dex laughs breathlessly, and when he speaks it sounds like he's about to cry. "Okay. I love you too."

Everything is quiet as they sit, hands pressed together, and from an outsider's view they probably look like a wedding photograph except Nursey is wearing a snapback and Dex has an old sweatshirt on. Nursey smiles, and he feels Dex smile too.

Nursey walks home feeling like he's about to explode, and the quad is almost silent except for a few people dragging their drunk friends home. He's always liked the walk back to his dorm, it's a nice scenic route, and the lampposts shine yellow moons on the sidewalk leading to his building. He climbs the stairs and opens his door, stepping into his room and checking the whiteboard he and his roommate use to communicate. _out for drinks. be back at some point probably_ it reads. Nursey reminds himself to text him later.

The realization washes over him again, and he starts to laugh to himself. "Oh my God," he says, half-hysterical and a little too loud, "Oh my _God_!"

The people who live next to him bang on the wall twice, and he calms himself. "Sorry!" He yells at the wall, an apologetic smile on his face even though they can't see him. He grabs his laptop and sits on his bed, hands close to shaking as he opens up the ever-present document. He smiles and squeezes his eyes shut again. Usually, he thinks for too long about titles, but this one comes naturally, and as he types it he smiles.

  


_dex_

  


**Author's Note:**

> DON'T BREAK SPEEDING LAWS KIDS
> 
> So, I just finished up a poetry unit in English and it reminded me that 1. I love writing poetry and 2. I love Derek "Nursey" Nurse, if that's any explanation as to why my writing is flowery as fuck.
> 
> That said, the breaks between scenes are supposed to be "excerpts" from Nursey's poems, if you were wondering. They're short and terrible and just take them.
> 
> (i don't own check please!)
> 
> tumblr: sixpiecechickenmcnobody


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